THE NEXT MORNING, school officially begins. My first period is homeroom, which I share with the other woodwind students, or Aeros. I get lost in Harmony Hall looking for it, and when I finally arrive at the right place, most of the kids are already there, talking and laughing. The room is long and the walls are sculpted for optimum acoustics. A picture window gives a view of the mountains and the lake. The other wall is lined with clear, fully enclosed cubicles, sort of like old-fashioned telephone booths, that I’m guessing are soundproof for individual spellwork. Every desk has an apple on it, which I take to be a nice, welcoming gesture by our homeroom Maestro, who is apparently not yet here.
There is only one desk still empty, at the very front of the classroom, beside Darby.
“Hey,” I say, trying to be as cheery as possible. “You were up early this morning.”
By early, I mean the crack of dawn. Darby was gone before I even woke up, her bed made up so neatly it would make Gran cry with happiness.
She just gives me a little nod and stares at her desk.
Claudia wanders over and snickers. “Nice shoes, Jones. Or can I even call them that? You some kind of construction worker back home?”
I yank my feet under my chair, but it’s too late to hide my scruffy boots. Looking around, I notice all the others are wearing the same shiny uniform shoes. Not a scuff of dirt on any of them.
“Cut it out, Claudia,” Darby snaps, surprising me.
Claudia laughs and picks up Darby’s apple, tossing it lightly and catching it again. “You know, it’s weird, isn’t it? You and Amelia—the other one—were supposed to be roommates, and then you get some other Amelia Jones instead. Seems like an odd coincidence.”
“Yeah,” Darby says softly. “It does.”
I swallow hard and lower my face, as a hot, rashy feeling sweeps from my cheeks to my toes. My hands squeeze together between my knees.
Everyone is still talking when our Maestro arrives. Mr. Pinwhistle glares around at us, then stomps in, slamming his large bassoon case onto his desk at the front. Claudia quickly slides back into her chair.
“I will have silence!” he says. “And when I enter the room, you will greet me with respect.”
“Yes, Maestro,” a few people mutter.
“What?” he says, holding a hand to his ear.
“YES, MAESTRO,” we all shout.
He grunts and sits heavily, his chair creaking beneath him.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Mr. Pinwhistle says, slapping his desk. “This is not some artsy-fartsy Musicraft camp where we sit around talking about how music makes us feel. Mystwick is for serious musicians and serious magic. There will be no crying, whining, excuses, eating, cheating, tardiness, talking out of turn, passing notes, vandalizing school property, chewing gum, stupidity, laziness, late homework, or bathroom breaks.”
I’m not sure that last one is entirely legal to ban, but I don’t think now is the best time to bring it up.
“At the end of each week,” Mr. Pinwhistle says, “you’ll be listed according to chair, based on your performance in class and on homework.” He smacks a finger on a chart by the door, where all our names are written on little cards. I notice there are twenty-six slots instead of twenty-five, and wonder if anyone else notices that an extra flute was added to the class. I sink a little lower in my chair. “First chair to last. Oh, and did I mention? Last chair gets double homework.”
I stifle a groan. He may as well go ahead and hand me my assignment. I heard these kids play during the Planting Ceremony, so I know what I’m up against.
Still, I’d rather play a million extra hours of practice scales than be expelled.
Mr. Pinwhistle hands out spells to each of us, based on our instruments. Mine is an etude called Barcarolle, by Friedrich Burgmüller, which I’ve never heard of before, but it doesn’t look too difficult. It’s a yellow spell that’s supposed to “peel, unwrap, or open” an object.
I glance at the apple on my desk.
“Now, as any toddler can tell you,” growls Mr. Pinwhistle, “there are four types of spells. What are they . . .” He looks around until his eyes land on me. “Jones?”
Everyone stares at me. Claudia’s eyes burn into me from one side, and Darby’s from the other.
Ears burning, I sit up straighter and say, “The four types of spells are green, yellow, blue, and white”
“And who will define green spells for us?” He nods at another flutist in the back. “You—who are you?”
“I’m Jingfei.” The girl stands up and says in a clear voice, “Green spells are also known as bio spells. They work on living organisms: people, animals, plants. They affect biological processes, healing or causing growth, or inflicting pain and withering.”
Mr. Pinwhistle grunts, nods, and turns to another student. “And yellow spells?”
“They let us move things,” the boy says quietly.
Mr. Pinwhistle sighs. “Name?”
The boy’s cheeks turn red. “Collin Brunnings.”
“Collin Brunnings,” mutters Mr. Pinwhistle, going to the chart by the door. He finds Collin’s card and moves it into last place. Everyone falls very quiet.
I sit up a little straighter, trying not to grin. At least it’s not me in the last spot.
“In this class, Collin,” growls Mr. Pinwhistle, “we will be specific in our answers. So who can tell me what yellow spells do—specifically?”
Claudia raises her hand. “Yellow spells, or kinetic spells, manipulate objects. They summon, repel, levitate, ward. They can even teleport, but those are very hard to play and can end in disaster if you mess up. You have to have a special license for teleportation spells.”
The rest of the answers come quickly as Mr. Pinwhistle calls on other students. This is all basic stuff. Even so, I take notes furiously, making sure to be very specific.
“Blue spells are elemental,” says a girl named Aya. “They let you call up wind or fire, and affect the weather. They can also be illusion spells, because they conjure light and darkness.”
“White spells influence the mind,” a boy named George explains, as he pushes his glasses up his nose. “They’re also called mental spells. They can charm and enchant, put you to sleep or fog your memory. And they let some people see the future.”
“That’s not true!” Claudia cries out.
“It is! My grandmother knew a spell that could—”
“Enough,” grumbles Mr. Pinwhistle. “It’s true some musicians can use certain spells to discern events to come, albeit these so-called visions are usually murky and unreliable.”
Darby pipes up softly, “Some people believe in a fifth kind of spell—black spells.”
Everyone turns to stare at her.
Mr. Pinwhistle makes a noise in his throat like he has something stuck there.
“They let you talk to ghosts,” Darby goes on. “Or resurrect the dead, steal souls, stuff like that.”
“Like the Necromuse!” says George. “He uses black spells!”
Everyone whispers, and a few kids look frightened.
“What’s the Necromuse?” I whisper to George, whose desk is behind mine.
He leans forward and replies, “Your worst nightmare, Jones.”
I roll my eyes. “Very helpful, thanks.”
Mr. Pinwhistle’s face has turned red. “Miss Bradshaw, we at Mystwick do not trade in fairy tales. There are no such things as black spells, and attempting them here will result in severe consequences. Now, we’ll speak no more about that.” He slaps Darby’s card into the last-chair slot, bumping up Collin Brunnings, who lets out a relieved sigh.
Huh. I lean back in my chair, tapping my pencil to my lip.
If there’s no such thing as black spells, why would it be against the rules to try them?
Mr. Pinwhistle gives us a few minutes to tune up, then splits us into two groups. The first group heads into the little cubicles with the clear plastic walls, while my group waits for our turn. I watch curiously as the students in the cubicles play over their apples, which they place on little clear shelves inside. I can’t hear a single note from any of them. Those walls must be thicker than they look. Each cubicle fills with sparkling motes of green light, the magic bouncing around in the small spaces.
Behind me, George whispers, “Can you imagine farting in there?”
He and the boys around him crack up until Mr. Pinwhistle makes a growling noise.
Darby finishes first, holding up her perfectly peeled apple, but she doesn’t smile. Mr. Pinwhistle nods with satisfaction and moves her up two chairs, putting Collin back in last place.
Finally, it’s my turn. I shut the cubicle door and prop the spell on a stand in the corner. The apple goes on the shelf. Before I start, I hold my flute in position and practice the spell silently, clicking the keys and hearing the notes in my head. Once I’m sure of the melody, I begin.
But I only get three notes into the spell before the sheets in front of me suddenly slip off their stand, falling to the floor.
My heart jumps into my throat. I grab them up and replace them, then pick up where I left off.
Again, I barely even start playing, and the pages leap off the stand.
I glance around to see the students in the other booths aren’t having any trouble. There isn’t an air vent in here, or any other way a draft might have blown in. And I hadn’t gotten far enough into the spell yet to produce any magic. Weird. Quickly setting up the papers, I try again.
This time, a gust of wind rushes around the booth, sweeping away the papers and pulling at my hair and clothes. I shout, grabbing at the sheets, and end up knocking my funny bone on the door handle. Yelping with pain, I throw out a hand for support and knock my apple to the floor. The pages rush all around me, beating at me like enraged birds. Shrieking, I bat them away with one hand and try to hold down my skirt with the other as the wind rushes around my legs.
The door flies open, and the wind dissipates.
Mr. Pinwhistle is standing there, face red. I realize all the other students have finished their spells, and are sitting at their desks staring at me, as my spell sheets gently drift to the floor and my apple rolls out. Mr. Pinwhistle stops it with his shoe, then picks it up and holds it between us. It’s covered in dark bruises, and not so much as a sliver of the peel has been removed.
I stare at it, then him, at a loss for words.
What just happened?
It wasn’t my playing that started that wind. It’s almost like someone was playing a trick on me. But it doesn’t make sense—I was alone in there, and no other spells could have worked through the soundproof walls.
Mr. Pinwhistle looks disgusted. “Miss Jones, if you aren’t going to take this seriously, perhaps you should reconsider why you’re here at all.”
“But didn’t you see that—”
“Sit down, Miss Jones.”
A few people snicker, and it’s clear they thought I was the one making the wind, or maybe it just looked like I was being clumsy, dropping my papers everywhere.
“What a tragedy,” Claudia says.
I don’t know what to say to Mr. Pinwhistle. I can tell arguing will only make things worse.
So I mumble an apology, promising not to do it again, even though I didn’t do anything. Someone booby-trapped the booth or something. I have no idea how, but I do know who used it before me: Darby Bradshaw. I watch her closely, but she isn’t even paying attention to me. She’s just staring at her desktop. Is that a sign of guilt? Does she suspect my secret?
Mr. Pinwhistle firmly plants my name at the bottom of the chair list, and there it remains until the end of class, when he calls me to his desk.
He wasn’t kidding about the extra homework part.
That evening, what little free time I have left after all the extra work I had to do, I spend in the library. It’s not so busy now, because most of the students are hanging out in the gym or common areas. And I guess it’s still early enough in the year that people aren’t cramming for tests.
I try to call Gran from the library phone, but just get her voicemail. My throat closes up when I try to speak, and I only manage to squeak: “Hi Gran, it’s me, I’ll call again later.”
I send her another email instead, and find it’s much easier to lie that way.
This place is amazing! I write. I’ve made so many friends and am doing really well in all my classes. There’s nothing to worry about, not a single thing! Everything is totally fine.
After a moment’s thought, I erase the last two sentences, imagining Gran’s nose wrinkling up as she squints through her glasses, reading between the lines.
I miss you a lot, I write instead. The banana pudding here isn’t half as good as yours. Anyway, better go—lots of homework! Love, Amelia.
After sending the email, I go downstairs. I have to find something to do a report on for my literature class, and end up in the fairy-tale section.
My fingers trail along the spines. The Little Siren. Snow White and the Seven Drummers. Aladdin and the Wonderful Lute. The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
I can’t stop thinking about the spell I flubbed in homeroom, and that stupid apple rolling over the floor. And the rest of my classes today drove home one undeniable fact: I’m not as good as these kids are. Maybe with a lot of practice, I could be, but can I really improve that much in just two months? Am I wasting everyone’s time by even trying?
What if I’m just fooling myself, and should give up now?
Then my fingers pause on a slender blue book: The Magic Flute.
I take down the book and crack it open, recognizing the illustrations, because it’s the same edition as the one I have at home. It’s the story of a prince and an enchanted flute that could transform sadness into joy, and how he rescued his love by playing the most wonderful spells. When I was smaller, I used to read this one over and over, until I could repeat whole sections from memory. But as much as I love this one, I need something longer for my book report.
I start to close it, but then a card slips out the back. I bend over to pick it up—and freeze.
It’s one of those old cards people used to write their names on when they checked out a book. The list is old, because everything’s done with barcodes now; the dates are all from twenty years ago. But it’s not the dates that catch my attention.
It’s the name that practically leaps out at me: Susan Jones.
I gasp, staring at the little card like it’s a million-dollar bill.
She checked it out seven times.
Like it was her favorite book, too.
My hands start to shake. I sink to the floor, cradling the book, gripping it until the pages crinkle. She held this. She read it, over and over. She came to this spot, took it off this shelf, stood right here. I turn through every page, in case there are any other signs she left behind, but all I find are smudges left by dirty fingers. They could be anyone’s.
I slowly close the book, staring at the worn cover and imagining it in her hands. I can feel her so intensely at that moment that it’s like her arms are around me.
And I realize I can’t give up.
Because if I do, I’ll spend the rest of my life never knowing who I really am—am I my mother’s daughter, or am I my father’s? Do I stick by my dreams, or do I run away when things get hard, the way he did?
If I get expelled from Mystwick, let it be because I wasn’t good enough.
Not because I was a coward.